European Union - Should we be in or out?

Getting on for 10 years ago my wife and I were in Andorra, skiing. It was during this holiday that [most of] Europe took the great leap to get rid of individual national currencies and adopt The Euro across national borders. The UK, of course, turned its nose up at this idea and decided to have nothing to do with it. The fiasco over the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) at the end of the 70s put paid to that. Anyone with half a brain could have told you that was never going to work. It was Christmas come early for currency speculators like Soros and Buffett. What it did do was put the s**ts up the Government and the British Public in general and firmly set the British ...

I think we should be either in or out. The question for me is why we are half way there. It is the worst possible position. United Kingdom had opted out of EU visa regime (Schengen treaty). United Kingdom didn't want to share Euro currency. These are two major blocks in the EU building. Other EU governments and people from other EU countries see UK as half way out of the Union. That makes UK less influential in Europe. It is bad for UK economic interests in Europe as well. I think UK should decide as soon as possible what to do in next 10-20-30 years and go that way. That could be done in Parliament, by referendum, by PMs decision, by ...

Although the Irish rejection of the European Treaty was rather silly, via that flippant 'studenty' style 'No' campaign (the craic I think they call it!), it was welcome and reinforcement of the democracy of Europe. The Irish do rather well from European Union handouts and that was another reason why there was cross-party government support for the 'Yes' vote in Dublin, and the biggest reason why the 'No' vote was surprising. But in a true democracy the Irish 'No' campaign mobilized well and if they want to be separated from the Untied Kingdom (a war over it, no less) then why not cut loose Europe? Although abortion and European national service were unfairly ...